In verse 7 Job’s complaint now seems to take on a tone of irony, and so it has been labeled as a reproach against God in the outline. Job calls upon God to remember that his life is nothing more than wind. According to Genesis, it is the breath of God which, when breathed into a person, makes him a living soul. Job sees it differently. To him life is nothing but a breath; life is ebbing away from him.

Remember that my life is a breath: Remember is a plea to God for him to become again the active Yahweh who showed his people mercy through the covenant. The same expression is used repeatedly by the psalmist in Psalms 20.3; 25.6; 79.8; 106.4. Here the call to God to remember is said in irony. Breath translates the Hebrew term ruach, which in Psalm 104.29-30 is the wind or spirit that creates life out of dust. By contrast Job uses the term as a symbol of the emptiness of life. Remember may sometimes have to be rendered negatively, “Do not forget,” or idiomatically, “Do not remove it from your heart.” Good News Translation has added the word “only” in “my life is only a breath.” This helps to emphasize the limited nature of breath. We may also say, for example, “My life is nothing more than a breath.” In some languages it may be better to shift to a simile and say “My life is like a breath,” as in Biblia Dios Habla Hoy.

My eye will never again see good: my eye is the poetic use of a part for the whole, and means that Job will not see, experience, witness joy or happiness in life. Good News Translation has restructured this expression to make “happiness” the subject, where good is the object in Revised Standard Version. In some languages an idiomatic expression will be appropriate; for example, “My mouth will never again taste happiness” or “Happiness will never again hold my heart.” Bible en français courant says “My eyes will never again see happiness.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .